You're listening to Episode 942 at the Father Bill's podcast. Welcome back. This week's episode is entitled "The Measure of Greatness" given on the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024. This is episode number one of "You Know You're Getting Old When." Two weeks ago I was preparing for the homily for this week and I spent three hours of my precious day off. I thought I'm going to get ahead of this and start preparing, preparing, and then last week and I was sitting in the back and I'm listening to the Gospel and listening to Father Anthony preach the homily that I was supposed to be giving. Wait a second. What's going on here? It's his turn. Oh, no. I read the wrong readings. I've prepared for it last week, not this week, so at least now I have notes for three years for now when this reading is coming. Anywho, 12-year-old YouTube video, we now call them shorts, the real short ones, jumped on my feed on YouTube and it was about a man who was mocking the organ duck players as they were walking across research stadium in Corvallis. Again, this was 12 years old and the guy was dressed in orange, he was a beaver fan and the tile said, drunk man mocking and I'm like, yeah, he was saying this because they're walking by, he goes, no natty, no natty, he's like, no natty, I'm like, what is he talking about? N-A-T-T-Y, no natty. It's not a word I'm used to hearing and so I had to look this up. I mean, the guy was belligerent, he was ignorant, but I needed to learn why he was saying what he was saying. It turns out at that time the organ ducks were ranked four in the nation and the beavers were 13. I mean, that's good that were even ranked as beavers, it's common for the ducks to be ranked, but this is the weird thing, he's mocking them because they lost one game to Stanford which knocked them out of the championship game, but they still went to a BCS bowl game which the beavers didn't go, so he's mocking them and I'm like, what are you talking about, sir? What are you thinking? Well, he's not because he's drunk and as a beaver fan and the person that was recording it was like, I'm a beaver fan and I'm embarrassed by this person and I started thinking, this is what I need to talk about because the reading speaks something of this, but somehow we seem to feel that we have to put down others in order to raise ourselves up and there's no way he's going to rescue this guy, he's not going to rescue himself because the facts or the facts, one's going to a BCS bowl game and the beavers are going to an animal bowl game, which is great, but not the same, here's Steven worse, he's not even playing, right? He's a fan, he's going to be in this maybe in this stadium, he's not actually personally responsible for a win and loss, just not, in fact, one of the duck players which was pretty smart, he turned to him and he goes, oh and where are you going, right, that guy's going nowhere, right? See this is a common tactic for bullies, to put people down in order to raise oneself up, it's a defense mechanism for our own insecurities, but see, it's revealed a common and yet sad state we all struggle with and that is jealousy and self ambition, heard this in the scriptures and we sometimes feel that because we're doing some kind of sport and we're a fan, we get a pass on being, let's say rude, what do they call this behavior on the field, that you'd be given a penalty for this, what is it called, unsportsman like conduct or taunting and what is the penalty for taunting, you're out of here, now there have been sports throughout the world who have gone completely off the edge, where riots occur, you've seen them and maybe that happened in your country, it is horrible, but somehow we felt because we're fans, we're allowed to do this, that's ridiculous, what has ever happened to good sportsmanship, where has it gone, now we haven't divided the country, now it's in sports like never before, is this the appropriate venue that we would be doing this, when we do this here, when we as Catholic Christians mock our Protestant mainline brothers and sisters for having rebelled against mother church, would we do that, is that okay, no, arrogance make us great, no, see now while St. Paul speaks about and uses an analogy of sports analogy in St. Paul's first, Randy Corinthians chapter 9 verse 24, he says, "Run so as to win, run to as to win, but I don't recall him encouraging people to have selfish ambition to push everybody out of their way, the race of life and salvation isn't a competition against others, maybe against Satan, but not our fellow brothers and sisters, and there's no population cap for salvation, he wants everyone to be there, God wants everyone to be with him." So what is greatness? Well in terms of the world, let's say sports, it would be what, the Super Bowl, getting to the Super Bowl and winning it, or winning the World Series or going to the Olympics and getting a gold medal, or in the arts it would be an Oscar or Grammy, in politics it would be maybe a governor or a president or a prime minister or a king. How about science anybody, what would be the prize, what would be, what's the prize called for awards and science, Nobel, that's right, the Nobel Prize, maybe Nobel Prize for physics or whatever. So for always to be great it takes discipline, but sometimes that discipline can hone us and this is the hope to be the best versions of ourselves. But that same discipline can also go right and destroy paths of relationships we have with people and destroying our families and everybody around us because we're so determined and so myopic in our view we've lost a big picture. In terms of power it can be used to lord it over people or it can be, having power can be given away. Think of Jesus, he had all and has all power and what did he do with it? He gave it all away. We heard in the Gospel a shocking dialogue that he has with his apostles. He had just told them the most important news they could hear, that the Son of Man is going to be killed, suffer death and rise again and they're like doo doo doo doo doo doo. I don't know what he said, la la la la la, who's the greatest and they're having a discussion? Jesus stops them and tells them this is not about power, this is not about fame, it's not a competition about who's going to win and who's going to lose and it isn't about winning an award but it is about greatness, not as the world tells us. So what is greatness in the view of God and again Jesus makes this clear, we hear this, "If anyone wishes to be first he shall be the last of all and the servant of all." Boom, there it is, I could end my homily but we're called all of us to be servants, no matter what state of life we're in. St. James tells us in his epistle, he wrote, "The wisdom of God is pure, peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy, good fruits without inconstancy or insincerity." Do we all live like this? Well I don't think so, I know I don't, I struggle in this. There's times where I am a bad fan or I struggle in sin, but see the standard is still the standard as the Steelers say, speaking of sports analogies, the standard is a standard and what is our standard? It's Jesus, he is the standard and what may seem impossible that doesn't erase the standard. We are not called to be mediocre, be mediocre, be mediocre everybody, no, be great, serve. Greatness can be a great thing, it can be a good thing as long as it has the love of God and neighbor as its ultimate goal. So this week put on your calling as a disciple, a disciple not of a sports team but of Jesus. Find a way to lift someone up, whether it be at school or at work or home or just about where you might be or be a good winner, be a good loser, help a friend, help a neighbor, help someone in need, go ducks, you'll beavers. Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Father Bill's podcast. As always if you have any questions or comments you can go to my website fatherbill.org, and there you can see email me directly from the website, but also there are links to other podcasts, other social media accounts that I have, Facebook, Twitter, or I should say x.com and even Threads which is another social media place where I post, but I will do my best to respond back to you, and yeah, do it in a timely fashion, I hope. In the meantime my God bless you and have a great week, bye bye. [Music], and I will see you in the next video. [Music], and I will see you in the next video. [Music], and I will see you in the next video. [Music] [Music] (gentle music)
